March 4 is National Grammar Day in the U.S. To celebrate, in the midst of this endless winter, I’m offering a sweet, limited-time deal for new clients: Take 30 percent off my regular editing rates! This applies to short jobs as well as long ones, but does not apply to proofreading. New clients only, please.
So, check my Rates page and contact me for a quote. I’ve also updated my Testimonials page as well.
Enjoy These Red-Hot Deals!
I rarely post editing specials, but now is the time. I’ve finished writing a book and my funds are a little depleted. So I’m very motivated to work with new clients, especially those who are hesitating about the prices for editing but would like to get a really good, thorough copyedit! These deals will extend into the spring.
Got a Long Book?
For a while I’ve had a hot deal listed on my Rates page: I will edit manuscripts between 70-80K words for $499. Now I’d like to extend that to ALL manuscripts up to 100,000 words. (Sorry, nonfiction is not included because these books take extra time.) Just FYI, the regular price of a 100,000-word edit would be $700.
What’s in Your Budget?
I sometimes have clients ask me for a quote and when I give it to them I can tell that they just can’t stretch that far. It becomes complicated if I don’t know what their budget is. So I’m introducing a sliding-scale plan. I may not be able to take your job if I am busy, but please feel free to tell me what you can afford, and I’ll see if I can help out! Suggested start for the sliding-scale fee is $200 and up. This would be for editing only: I think my rates for proofreading are pretty competitive.
It’s easiest to reach me via the Contact form here. I look forward to hearing from you this spring!
Favorite Genres to Edit
My favorite genres are probably historical fiction and romance, mystery, paranormal romance, thrillers, and books set in England or by English authors. I’m comfortable with editing British English as well as American English. LGBT books very welcome; all heat levels welcome.
Everything changes. The Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style used to be two very different animals. AP was for newspapers and magazines, the world of hard type and lead slugs and timelines. Chicago was for books and the world of traditional publishing. AP didn’t take the Oxford (or serial) comma; Chicago did. AP had no use for the en- or em dash (closed or open). Chicago described it in loving detail.
In this digital world, there’s a new emphasis on keeping up to date. So now both style guides are available as online subscriptions. It’s actually a wonderful way to use AP, since it’s very easy to search for words quickly. I’ve used Chicago’s online service as well in the past. It was more expensive and quite a bit less easy to search for what I needed.
So I decided to buy the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, #17. It comes in hardback at a hefty price, but there is something about having this book at your side that makes you more confident as an editor. I was delighted to see that the typeface has changed inside. They actually bold paragraph headings, making it easier to find what you need!
But furthermore, and here’s the shocker: AP and Chicago now both agree on a very important thing. They lowercase the word internet. Since this was one of the things I always checked for and held the line on when I edited, it was a bit hard for me to swallow at first when they announced the change a few months ago.
Other items they agree on: “email” is a closed word now, no hyphen. That’s pretty sensible. “Website” is spelled like so, not separated as it used to be (“Web site”). And the nice thing is, the World Wide Web remains the same in both style guides. It will take me a while to get used to “the web,” though (ouch).
So I will be turning to Chapter 7.80 in Chicago every now and then, just to refresh my memory. But on the whole, I like this new edition of Chicago; it strikes me that the editors strove for clarity and readability this time, and even flexibility … meeting their old frenemy AP halfway! The book description on Amazon even mentions self-publishing.
In other news, I’ve lowered my proofreading rates to .003 per word, bringing me more in line with other editors who work for indie authors.
The birthday cake in the pic marks Edit for Indies‘ first five years in existence! I realized when I looked at my records just now that I did my first real freelance job under the Edit for Indies name in May 2012. I have also recently passed invoice #300, another milestone!
It is true that the self-publishing scene has changed a lot in the last five years. Some wonderful outfits have gone out of business (Self-Publishing Roundtable, for example), while small presses that once flourished have fallen by the wayside, most notably All Romance eBooks but also including Samhain.
To generalize, it seems as if most indie authors at this point are either doing quite well or are feeling discouraged about their prospects. There isn’t very much upward momentum except for people who carefully plan out their series and write to market in a small number of categories. There are also shady promoters out there…a recent lengthy thread on Kboards.com entitled “Box Set Scams” reinforces this point.
I want to thank the loyal clients who have stuck with me this far. Thanks for your trust in my work, and I look forward to working with some old AND new faces in 2017!
Greetings! I tend to mostly post here in spring and fall, for some reason. This is my “fall” post and I have done some much-needed housekeeping on the site. Updates included minor tweaks to my rates (non-fiction editing is now one cent per word), though I have kept my rates stable, as I know this is a challenging time for my fellow independent authors. I’ve also added the option of a second proofreading pass for a flat fee of $200, when I’ve copyedited your manuscript, or another editor has worked on it.
I updated the Resources page. I had to remove a few dead links (sadly, Kate Genet is no longer doing blurbs), but I added Amy Martin’s manuscript critique service and the wonderful Self-Publishing Roundtable interview podcast, which I enjoy weekly. (Update: This podcast is sadly defunct…) The good news is that I have plenty of availability from now till the end of the year, so I encourage you to contact me for a quote. You can reach me at editforindies@gmail.com. Thanks!
PS. The results of my poll showed that Romance and Sci-fi are by far the top two genres that people who visit the site write. Mystery came third. I enjoy editing mysteries and would like to do more of it!
Thanks to everyone who participated in the writers’ poll! The results stayed fairly steady: Sci-Fi/Fantasy was number one and Romance came in at #2, followed by a tie between Literary Fiction and “Other.”
I realize that I didn’t set an option for nonfiction books, which probably make up a large chunk of the “other” responses. Due to several recent inquiries I received about working on nonfiction, self-help books particularly, I changed my rates to clarify that I charge .008 a word for these jobs. Nonfiction is very welcome—but it takes a bit more time and effort to edit, and I wanted to make sure my rates reflect that.
I hope everybody has been having a good summer! Several clients of mine released books this summer that I copyedited, including R Weir‘s first full-length mystery/thriller, “Tracking a Shadow” and Donna Flynn‘s action-packed sequel to “The Dragon’s Gem,” “Aurora’s Dragon.”
The fall should be quite busy (especially with the rollout of the new Kindle Unlimited program on Amazon), so I encourage you to contact me soon if you need editing work for fall or winter releases.
And so does the Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Horse! I found some beautiful and diverse horse images today on the CBC’s blog and thought I would share them. Looks like we are in for a dynamic and creative year, doesn’t it?
So, what has Edit for Indies been up to? I am currently editing two full-length vampire novels (both over 90K words!) by novelists Donna Flynn (Blood-Red Tear) and Melinda Killen (Tangled in Blood)—quite a change from the last few months, when clients have typically brought me shorter works. (I did just edit Aditi Chopra‘s latest short romance novel, House of Love, though.)
On that note, I will now be charging a flat rate, starting at $99 (my new minimum rate) and going up to $279, for books under 50,000 words (see the Rates page for more detail). I know that my rates are still on the affordable side, and I strive to keep them that way.
I wanted to share a nice testimonial that Erika Trevathan, author of several new adult contemporary romances, sent me last year. (I never got a chance to put it on my Testimonials page.) The points Erika highlights are exactly the ways in which I hope my copyediting work helps clients and offers value. I hope and intend to continue doing good work in 2014 for both new clients and old friends.
Gabriella,
Thank you again for working me in on such a short notice. You did a fabulous job and I am so pleased with your work!! It’s amazing how many mistakes I missed when reading through the manuscript on my own. I will definitely be getting with you for my next book. Also, thank you for the suggestions you made in your email. They were very helpful and very much appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Erika T., April 2013
